The major decision the Obama Administration continues to procrastinate is whether to continue the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan. Victory in Afghanistan was, as you will recall, one of Obama’s main campaign themes – one he used to convince people that he wasn’t the dyed-in-the-tie-dyes peacenik his left-wing record, background and positions on other issues suggested. Under President Bush, America’s war aims in Afghanistan were fairly straightforward:
(1) Drive the Taliban from power.
(2) Destroy Al Qaeda’s training and operations bases in the country, while killing or capturing as many of their personnel as possible.
(3) Replace the Taliban with a government that was less repressive, viewed as legitimate by the Afghan people, and would not cooperate with Al Qaeda – a step that inherently involved preventing the revival of the Taliban itself, given its Islamist ideology and thorough integration with Al Qaeda.
Step One was accomplished swiftly in the fall of 2001, and Step Two proceeded apace at the same time; Al Qaeda’s leadership was never wholly destroyed (its very top men appear to have fled to the Waziristan region of Pakistan), nor completely routed from the country, but its bases were destroyed and its ability to project power from Afghanistan to outside countries was essentially crippled.
Step Three was always the diciest as a long-term proposition; as I wrote in early 2003:
Long-term, we would like to establish a secure government in Afghanistan that will consolidate the victory over theocracy and prevent re-establishment of havens for terror. But if we fail in that aim, as we still may, the war will no more be a failure than it is a failure to weed your garden in spring and, the following year, discover new weeds.
We were never going to create an ideal liberal democracy in Afghanistan, given its combination of (among other things) tribal warlord culture, illiteracy and poverty, but without going into the whole 8-year blow-by-blow, the Karzai government has by and large held together in one form or another for 8 years as a mostly-willing ally against Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Recently, however, especially since Al Qaeda’s activities in Iraq have been winding down, the Taliban has been gaining more of a foothold, requiring the U.S. to face a choice: step up its own presence, or stand down and allow the Taliban to take its best shot at regaining power.
Now, Obama is putting up trial balloons about giving up on the whole project and accepting the Taliban returning to power as a fait accompli before it has even become one (passively allowing conditions on the ground to worsen and then accept the results as inevitable is Obama’s go-to foreign policy move). But Allahpundit asks one crucial question we need to put to the Taliban to test whether or not it’s completely insane to do this:
Ask them to tell us where Osama, Zawahiri, Abu Yahya al-Libi, and the rest of the gang are hiding; if Omar and the Quetta Shura don’t have that information instantly available, they should be able to get it pretty quickly. Then they pass it to the Pakistanis and the Pakistanis pass it to us and the rest is left to the generals and drone operators….And if the Taliban refuses his demand, whether for reasons of jihadist loyalty or Pashtun hospitality, then there’s your proof that they can never, ever be trusted not to host AQ if we leave them alone in Afghanistan.
We know the answer to that, and presumably so does President Obama. Bill Roggio explains at length why this would never happen, detailing the loyalties and operational integration of Al Qaeda with the Taliban and noting the obvious fact that a U.S. bent on leaving Afghanistan has a lot less leverage than one bent on entering it:
Mullah Omar would not agree to turn over bin Laden [in September 2001] when he was faced with the prospect of imminent annihilation. Surely Omar will not part ways with the terror master now that his prospects for success are greater than they have been in years.
Now, I’m not 100% opposed in theory to allowing bad actors to become parts of the political process if necessary to end a civil war, for example. But this is not a civil war, as Roggio details (really, you need to read his whole strategic overview). It is – and here is the fundamental way in which Right and Left disagree on this – a zero-sum ideological battle in which a U.S. defeat at the hands of Islamist tyrants cannot possibly be viewed as anything but a catastrophic setback. And acceptance of a resurgent Taliban after 8 years of making war to prevent just that would be understood universally as a defeat. Roggio details how Al Qaeda, as it did in Iraq, plays the sort of role in the Afghan war that the Soviet Union did in Vietnam, treating the locals as its proxies in an effort to demonstrate the superiority of its ideological model over that of the U.S., while providing logistical and other support. Any political accomodation that gives state power to an ongoing Al Qaeda proxy and ideological soulmate is a direct threat to U.S. national security, and needs to be treated as such.
The Left, having largely abandoned its long-held pretense of supporting the war against the Taliban, is busy conjuring up excuses for why victory can’t be an option. Some of these are longstanding (Afghanistan is poor and mountainous and disorganized), some more recently stressed (the Karzai government is corrupt, the recent election tainted by fraud – two interesting choices of criticism from supporters of a Chicago machine Democrat to run our own government), but if those weren’t the excuses, there would be others. There are always others. The Left palpably ached for another Vietnam in Iraq, and despite a long, bloody and bitter war at great domestic political cost to the Right, in the end it didn’t get one – instead of a repeat of the fall of Saigon at the hands of the jihad, an elected and relatively pro-American government still stands in Baghdad, and in one form or another looks likely to endure, even if its form and posture may change as the years go by. The same script is being rolled out in Afghanistan; it will be up to this White House to resist it even as it comes from Obama’s own ideological soulmates.
Afghanistan is not Obama’s war; it is America’s, and those of us on the Right want it to succeed and will, by and large, support its aggressive prosecution under a Democratic president. But the corollary is that just as it’s not his war alone to support, it’s not his alone to abandon. Obama promised to see this fight through to the end. The Taliban won’t do the things they’d need to do to switch sides; they remain committed to defeating us, and only America can stop them. Will Obama keep his promise? Or will he back down from Al Qaeda’s unrepentant ally and protector, and treat them as just more guys from the neighborhood?
Moe Lane
Neil Stevens
Steve Maley
Daniel Horowitz
Jake Walker
Don't worry
anotherindyfilmguy (Diary) Tuesday, October 13th at 3:01PM EST (link)be assured the O will do all he can to have “peace in our time”…
Santorum? Well, at least he’s not Romney…
http://www.zazzle.com/enemy_of_the_statist_tshirt-235977043035297478
Obama's War!!!
mikek369 (Diary) Wednesday, October 14th at 11:13AM EST (link)This is Obama’s war and since he does not know how to fight it…http://fortwaynevoiceoftruth.blogspot.com….he should pull out, napalm the poppy fields from on high and let the taliban and al-qaeda have Afghanistan.
On the other hand, if he wants to reconsider his silly rules of engagement, and get his miranda rights lawyers out of the country then he should let General McChrystal fight the war and keep his goofy ideologies out of it.
Semper Fi
Mike Konkel
Fort Wayne, IN
Michael Konkel
You forgot step 4, which was Obama's election canard
Marcus_Traianus (Diary) Tuesday, October 13th at 3:10PM EST (link)Finally capture/kill OBL. You remember, it was that whole- cut off the head of the snake conversation. AQ and the Taliban will just evaporate and turn to dust. It was Obama’s “magic bullet” that he kept throwing like a dart at GWB. It should have been one of many tip offs that he wasn’t qualified to be CoC.
Meanwhile our guys, have and continue to kill every tango leader that pops his head up- irrespective of the new Obama ROE’s which are getting our guys killed.
But take your time, Barack. As you sit there sipping ice tea, destroying the health care system, taking over GM, ruining our economy, increasing unemployment, burdening our children, raising our taxes and flogging General McCrystal for being honest and articulating what was already approved to be made public, brave soldiers are dying. No rush though. Go polish you Nobel Prize.
“Both of our political parties, at least the honest portion of them, agree conscientiously in the same object—the public good; but they differ essentially in what they deem the means of promoting that good. One side believes it best done by one composition of the governing powers; the other, by a different one. One fears most the ignorance of the people; the other, the selfishness of rulers independent of them. Which is right, time and experience will prove.”.Thomas Jefferson
The Enemy of the Enemy
reason60 (Diary) Tuesday, October 13th at 3:29PM EST (link)is NOT our friend. Framing the war in terms of American domestic Left/ Right politics is a poor strategy. To be blunt, adding thousands of troops simply as a big F-U to the Left isn’t a good idea.
You make a good point- “acceptance of a resurgent Taliban after 8 years of making war to prevent just that would be understood universally as a defeat”
But then again, having the Taliban control 80% of the country after 8 years of fighting is largely seen as a stalemate. And the COIN strategy depends entirely on the goodwill and earnest efforts of the Karzai regime.
We need to decide what our real goal is- which is to defend America and keep us safe from another 9-11 attack. Right now the assumption is that we need to eliminate any lawless nations where AQ can operate, and make sure that there are no friendly governments acting to harbor AQ.
Unfortunately, this comes very close to demanding a constant operation of nation-building and global policing. There are always going to be lawless areas (like Yemen, Somalia, Ethiopia) and unfriendly regimes that would love to host an anti-American or anti-Western group.
The idea that we should accept constant war and global king-making in order to stay safe is erroneous. AQ even in its heyday, could never threaten us with anything more than boxcutters and lax airport security, The Oklahoma bombing was pulled off by a couple disaffected drifters. Even in these hyper-vigilant times, a single crazed terrorist can set off a bomb at a mall, shoot up a crowded theater, or shoot down a jet with a Stinger.
There is a terrible price to be paid for constant warfare- during times of war, the central power of the government becomes enlarged, and permanent war ensures permanent centralization of power in the hands of the Executive Branch, which is the opposite of conservative Jeffersonian thought.
There simply is no way that we can completely eliminate any and all terrorist threats, everywhere in the world. Attempting to do so leads us to become the very sort of global Empire we fought a revolution to escape from.
The problem is that this argument was just as valid in Oct 2008 as in Oct 2009
civil truth (Diary) Tuesday, October 13th at 4:09PM EST (link)And had Obama agreed and run on a platform to withdraw from Afghanistan then, it could be argued that this was a consequence of the election.
But instead Obama ran on a platform of aggressively prosecuting the Afghanistan war – indeed castigating the Bush administration for having ignored this “good” war in favor of Iraq. He thus rejected your line of argument.
In March he reaffirmed support for the war and said he was instituting a new strategy. For him to reverse course now and accept this logic would be interpreted as cut and run from another conflict, which in conjunction with Iran and the missile shield would be viewed as an unwillingness to use force abroad.
Or leave him open to more malignant interpretations.
The greatest evil…is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voice. Hence, naturally enough, my symbol for Hell is something like the bureaucracy of a police state or the offices of a thoroughly nasty business concern. -C.S. Lewis
http://www.gmsplace.com/
Never admit a mistake;
reason60 (Diary) Tuesday, October 13th at 4:12PM EST (link)it will only make one look foolish.
Continue on the wrong path and hope it leads to a good end.
And, this is the type of "reason "that flows from a 60 IQ.
Tbone (Diary) Tuesday, October 13th at 4:24PM EST (link)nt
Envisioning when all that is Left is the Right.
truly stupendous insight...
DONTREADONME (Diary) Tuesday, October 13th at 4:25PM EST (link)Ron Paul would be proud, because we can not fight all of the enemy everywhere in the world give up, huh? Glad to see you have absolutely no idea how our enemy functions, then again why would you I do not think you’ve received your clearance yet, but heh, you don’t need a clearance to understand the enemy you have your REASON.
Enemy Without
dclamage Wednesday, October 14th at 10:21AM EST (link)We have in fact been combatting murderous Islamic Extremists all around the world. This has been ongoing for decades. Only in the past 8 years have we stepped it up.
Lucky for us, 99% of the 25% of the entire world population is moderately Muslim, not of the “subjugate, enslave or destroy” variety.
It would be a gross mistake to ease up on them now.
– Dan Clamage
Obama is a ill-fated person
thejimmer Wednesday, October 14th at 11:18AM EST (link)From the guy who sits in the white house office and to the snakes in congress ( I ask for forgiveness from God’s creatures for aligning them) to the buttheads of the senate – they are your true threat. Mental Illness runs amuck
They do care about this country -they are in the process on destroying what has been put into place for aleast 150 yrs. The group in congress needs to be broomed out of office as soon as possible. Your life, pursuit of happiness and liberty is in the progress of being elimated
I do not states these things lightly
We have a state of despair which they all have caused. This just did start with this guy obama – go back to nixon time and he did the same sort of crap to the people then. He thought he was above the law. All these politicans NEED TO KNOW they work for you and me .
They keep making up fraking laws that have no benifits to the republic of this country – You need to tell them get out of our offices – We have people in this country voting for these people who run on the banner of change – The change is that they are going to make it better for themselves no one else
the jimmer
New Paradigm Needed for West v. Islam
tlwinslow (Diary) Wednesday, October 14th at 11:48AM EST (link)Ever since history ignoramus Pres. G.W. Bush claimed that Islam is a religion of peace but just happens to have a minority of violent nutcases who want to kill us all and are harbored by the rest, the U.S. and the West generally have totally failed to recognize that the mental AIDS of Islam itself is their greatest threat, since from day one it gave all believers the Mission: Impossible of conquering the world for Allah and Muhammad, and it will never ever give up, like the Terminator. Just because Islam became moribund for a couple of centuries, that doesn’t change the original orders, does it? They could care less about infidel George Washington and the infidel U.S. Constitution, despite a few secular Muslim sellouts like Kemal Ataturk, who seem to be on more shaky ground every day in the Muslim world. As to Obama, he’s the #1 mystery man of the world, and I wouldn’t be surprised no matter what he turns out to be, nor should you.
Wake up, it’s an ideology war, two scorpions in a shrinking bottle, and to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan, for instance, the U.S. has to work to educate the people out of Islam. and win one for GW. Too bad, our own principles, particularly separation of church and state get in the way, but do they really? Even TJ, who coined the term, didn’t say separation of mosque and state, because he was a Deist and loved Jesus as a great moral guide, and didn’t know diddly about Islam or its history except what he read in Gibbon, who mysteriously painted Muhammad as a great man too, big mistake, he didn’t have to live with them. Islam means submission to an eternal union of church and state, and is thus inimical to everything the U.S. stands for, and to win the world war against Islam we have to destroy it completely militarily, which doesn’t sound very fun, but it’s either us or them, and even then we have to use our power to change it so that it sells out its founder by separating church and state forever before we can leave them alone.
But can we make a religion sell out its founder? Maybe, but we can also hope to get Muslims to renounce Muhammad and Allah together in favor of anything else, even atheism,, or better, educated scientific Carl Sagan agnosticism,, so they become areligious people like we mainly are, and enjoy their pro sports and don’t give a fig about religion but just want to make their part of the world a better place by learning Science. To do that our best weapon is the Internet, so why don’t we parachute in massive numbers of cheap Internet terminals preloaded with links to free educational sites of all kinds in their languages, then provide military rescue services for people seeking to escape the grip of Sharia, systematically segregating the secular and fundamentalist Muslims and quarantining the latter.
Too bad Westerners are such history ignoramuses when it comes to Islam, that they never even produced a single site to help people see through Islam, via its hairy history, but never fear, I just put up a new site that teaches the key facts of the rise and spread fast and accurate for free, just click
http://go.to/islamhistory
It’s not finished yet but it’s pretty good. Now if we can get it translated into all the Muslim languages, we could boogey.
Go pimp your site somewhere else. You were pretty much over the line
Achance (Diary) Wednesday, October 14th at 12:12PM EST (link)with your last post and I’m surprised you survived. I’m thinking your days are numbered.
In Vino Veritas